Family Photos and a Sick Little Man

Good morning, blogland!  Its currently 5:00 am CST and I'm up blogging.  Why, you ask, am I not tucked snug in my bed next to the hubs on this chilly fall morning?  Why, you ask, am I on my second cup of coffee in my 3-cupper mug?  Well, not by choice, let me tell ya!  And I'd seriously consider brewing yet two more, if I didn't know I'd look like I have DT tremors.   Seriously, I get the shakes if I have too much caffeine.  Six fluid cups is my maximum.  Yes, I learned that the hard way.

Little man has been sick for the last couple of days.  It was bound to happen.  We went from sunny 70s to freezing 40s overnight.  Sunday it was blowing a gale with a chilly north wind and he snuck outside sans everything but a t-shirt.  What is it with 3 year old boys and stripping naked???  Every one of my sons has done it thus far.  Why break the cycle now?  Luckily I caught him within minutes, but evidently it was enough to do the damage.  Well, that and I had to catch him first.  Little stinker can RUN!

So, Monday night we were up until 5 am while I forced cough medicine into an unwilling, clamped shut mouth and rubbed Vick's on his chest and bottoms of his feet (works, I swear!) to try to kill the hacking cough.  I put him in bed with us, propped his head up on my shoulder to elevate his head, while he kicked and hacked.  He finally fell into a fitful sleep about an hour before I was supposed to get up with the others for school.  The hubs is going full-bore with a city contract, so it was up to me, since I can cat nap during the day - which I didn't - and now I'm kicking myself.

Last night he fell asleep pretty early, but then I got caught up in Pinterest (bane of my existence) and you know how it is if you've been up for so long, its like you can't shut down.  Yep.  That's where I was at.  So, about the time I turned off the computer and decided to do a quick pick up of the downstairs, so I could work on a craft all day today and not feel guilty, he woke up with a night terror.  Google the difference between a night terror and a nightmare.  Yeah.  Fun times.

Thankfully, the hubs got up with him and let me crawl into bed.  Dummy me fell asleep with my contacts in and woke up at 4:30 with one of my eyes feeling like a toothpick was stabbing me in it.  In the process of taking it out, I scratched my cornea.  How do I know this?  I do it all the time.  You'd think I'd get it right after 20 years of contact lenses.  (Holy cow!  I'm really that old?!  WOW!)  Then, little man woke up again, just long enough to wake me up but good, and I was done.  Wide awake.  Runny eye.  Runny nose because of my runny eye.  Three and a half hours of sleep.  Errrrrr...  I'm a four-eyed hot mess in my 13 year old pink and gray plaid robe.  Yeah, don't try to imagine it.  It might scar you for life.

Anyhoo...

So here I am.  Awake.  No crafts to show for the last few days.  Bored.  What to talk about????

Well, let's see...  I scheduled our kind of annual (when I remember it and can afford it) family pictures today.  Generally, we do Christmas cards with our family pictures on them - a tradition we decided to start back in 2004, so our families back home (here, when we lived in Raleigh and now there, since we live here - make sense?) can see how much the kids have changed in the last year.  Sometimes I just take the picture and do something up at Wally World or sometimes we have a professional do it.  We had it done professionally in 2006, 2008, and 2010 - so about every other year.  Guess we're going the professional route again this year.  (Does anyone ever really read all this?  Kudos to you if you are!  LOL!  If not... Oh well.  I'm bored.  So I'm doing this for me this morning.  LOL  And it takes my mind off the fact that my eye really, really HURTS!)

Here's our 2006 picture:

Frederick Havens Photography

And our 2008:

Donna Busch Photography

And it was just the kids in 2010:

Karmen's Studio and Gallery

And now I'm trying to get ideas for this year.

I want vintage.  Badly.

We're scheduled for Saturday afternoon.  I wasn't expecting to get in that quick, but its perfect as we're in a lull between football and wrestling season.  I knew that I better get us in somewhere quick before our schedules made it impossible.

So, now I'm on the hunt for clothes and background ideas.  I'm thinking old barn (Our photographer is going to check out Scott's parents barn), railroad tracks (kind of scares me since I have a real phobia of a train coming and trying to get 5 kiddos off the track), or in front of one of the old brick buildings downtown in our hometown.  Clothing is a bit of a problem.  Definitely jeans, but we're going to stay away from a sports theme this year.  And I'm wanting some funk, so I'm thinking Eva in a tutu and boots.

Here's some ideas via Pinterest that I'm loving...

The clothing...

The pose...

The background...

All via Laci Davis Photography.  This girl's got mad skillz!  I'm hoping ours turn out half as well, and plan on bringing my own chair and showing these to our photographer.  Is that tacky?  LOL

Anyway...  My eye is now pulsating and a hideous shade of red (YUM!), so I need to stop squinting at the computer.  Please say a prayer for it's quick healing.  I've got three days to get some shopping done for the perfect outfits!

TTYL and I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday!